L'Équinoxe de l'âme (The Equinox of the Soul), for soprano, triple harp or kannel (an Estonian zither, part of the Baltic psaltery family), and string quartet, is based on a lyric text by the Persian mystic and philosopher Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi about the mythical Persian firebird Simurgh (using Henry Corbin’s translation of L'Incantation de Sîmorgh). The Simorgh is no mere phoenix, but a benevolent creature that guides the soul—it lives in a white world, manifests itself to us in daylight, and is too dazzling to view directly. This firebird is a creature of paradox, outside of space and the normal concerns of men; as the poem notes, “All are with it [the Simurgh], but most are without it.”
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